


Neighbourly

by jeeno2



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Awkwardness, Drinking, F/M, Flirting, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-04-13 11:29:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4520199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeeno2/pseuds/jeeno2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The morning after Rose Tyler drunkenly stumbles home from the pub she wakes up to a big surprise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This bit of fluff started out as a tumblr drabble. And now here we are. :) I hope you enjoy.

When her alarm goes off at 7:30, Rose rolls over in bed, her head a screaming agony.

Moaning a little, she fumbles around on her nightstand with clumsy hands.  She vaguely remembers putting a glass of water there before drunkenly collapsing into bed last night.  She decides it would probably be a good idea to drink some of it before heading off to work in an hour.  

Finding the glass after what feels like forever, she gingerly sits up and leans against her headboard.  She brings the water to her lips and takes several small sips, hoping to avoid upsetting her roiling stomach any further.

Last night had been a terrible idea from the beginning.  She never should have listened to Shareen.  Tired of listening to Rose’s constant moping about her weeks-ago breakup with Jimmy, her friend suggested they go out to a pub after work.  ”To take your mind off things,” Shareen insisted. 

That was at half-six yesterday evening.  Five hours and God only knows how many drinks later, Rose somehow managed to make it back home with help from Shareen and some bloke they’d met at the bar.

The upside was that Rose successfully avoided thinking about Jimmy for an entire evening.  The very obvious downside is now she has to be at work in an hour and she isn’t certain she’ll be able to dress herself without falling over.

“I’m never doing that again,” Rose mutters under her breath.  She grabs her short silk bathrobe from the hook on the back of her bedroom door and pulls it on.  Tying it around her waist, she yawns and walks into the living room of her flat.

And nearly screams at what she sees when she gets there.

The bloke they met at the bar — the one that helped Shareen help her home — is sprawled out and sleeping on the only couch Rose owns.  

Shocked, and wondering why in the  _hell_  Shareen let this guy into her flat, she tries to pull her skimpy bathrobe down a bit to cover herself.  She awkwardly tiptoes as quietly as she can to the edge of the sofa, both wanting to wake him up to demand what the fuck he’s doing here — and wanting, in spite of herself, to get a good luck at him before she does.

She decides, with no small degree of surprise, that he’s actually rather fit.  More than fit, really.  Whoever he is, this creeper is actually kind of  _hot_.  She didn’t think blokes who crashed on drunk strangers’ sofas were supposed to be hot.  His hair is brown and in wild disarray.  (She can’t quite tell if his hair is normally all sticky-uppy like that or if it’s only that way while he’s sleeping.) He’s quite tall – his feet dangle off the edge of her sofa a few inches – and from the looks of things he’s also very lanky.  The bottom of his blue button-down shirt is untucked from his jeans and seems to have ridden up at some point in the night, leaving bare a small patch of skin and tuft of wispy brown hair at his waist.

After a long moment Rose realises that she’s staring.  She really probably shouldn’t be looking him over like this just before she boots him out of her flat.  Her eyes flit back up to his face – and then suddenly Rose is looking into the most startled brown eyes she’s ever seen.

“Erm,” Rose says, stupidly.   _Ask him what the fuck he’s doing here.  Tell him to get the hell out of here._

He beats her to it with an explanation.

“Rose,” the bloke says, rushing to sit up.  He brushes his sleep-tousled hair out of his eyes and quickly puts on his glasses.  He glances around himself nervously.  Actually, he looks rather panic-stricken.  The sudden realization that he’s probably just done something he shouldn’t have is written all over his face.  

“Hey, look, I know this probably seems  _super_ weird,” he says quickly, his words picking up speed as he goes, holding up his hands as if to defend himself.  ”But you were, erm, so pissed last night.  I don’t ordinarily make a habit of, erm, sleeping on strangers’ sofas – I really don’t, I promise – I just… I guess I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”  He coughs a little into his hand.  “If you… I dunno, needed something in the night, like a trip to the ER for a stomach pump or a sandwich or a glass of water or –“

 _Who the hell does this for a girl he doesn’t know?_  Rose wonders, mystified, as he continues to babble.

“Who the hell does that for a girl he doesn’t know?” Rose asks out loud, effectively cutting him off.

The guy stops talking and his jaw snaps shut with a pop.  He chuckles a little.  It’s an incredibly nervous sound.

“A weirdo, probably,” he says, sighing.  He’s blushing now and won’t look her in the eye.  He fidgets with his hands and stares down at his feet.  "But I hadn’t planned to stay all night, I swear.  I didn’t even mean to fall asleep.  I just, you know — figured that since my flat is right downstairs, I could just sit out here on your sofa for a bit and then go home.“  His eyes flit back up to hers, very briefly, before floating back down to the floor again.  "If you’d needed help, or water, or… I don’t know,  _something_ , I just thought I could…”

He trails off then, shrugging his shoulders.  

“Oh,” Rose says, awkwardly.  This guy is her  _neighbour?_   Why had she never seen him before last night?

“Well, um,” he says.  He coughs into his hand again.  "Right them.  I’ll just… erm.  I’ll just get going.”  He wastes no time getting to his feet.  He’s even taller than Rose thought — more than a good head taller than she is, in fact — and quickly walks to the front door of her flat.

“I guess I’ll… see you around the complex, yeah?” he mumbles to the door before opening it.

“Wait,” Rose says on impulse.  The guy pauses, then turns to look at her.

“Hmmm?“ 

“Erm,” Rose says.  She rubs at the back of her neck nervously.  "What’s… um.  What’s your name?“  She clears her throat meaningfully.  “Seems like I should know who you are, since you, you know – spent the night.”  

 _God, I’m such an idiot_ , she thinks.

“Oh.”  He runs his free hand through his wild hair and lets out a long breath.  "I’m John.  John Smith.“  He holds out a hand, offers to shake hers.  "I just moved here from Scotland for a university position.  It’s… um. Nice to officially meet you.”

Rose takes his hand and gives it a firm shake.  She realizes, too late, that her palm is sweating.  But so isn’t his.

“Hello, John,” Rose says.  “I… um. Suppose I’ll see ya around, yeah?”  
  


He flashes her a lopsided grin.   Rose does her best to ignore the flurry of butterflies that crop up in her stomach as a result.

“Um… Yes.  Probably. Seeing as I live downstairs from you and all that and… um.  Yeah.”

John Smith clears his throat awkwardly.  He nods once and, without another word, walks out of her flat.

Taking a deep breath, Rose flops down on her sofa.  She closes her eyes and shakes her head, trying to clear it.  She doesn’t have time right now to think about how foxy her new downstairs neighbour is.  No – right now, she needs to call Shareen and give her a piece of her mind.  


	2. Chapter 2

As soon as John lets himself into his flat his phone buzzes, alerting him to a new text.

He pulls it out of his back pocket.  When he sees who it’s from he closes his eyes and groans.

“Donna,” he mutters under his breath.  She wants him to call her back.  “ _Fuck_.” 

He scrolls down a bit and sees he missed three other texts from his cousin last night.  That pub must have been louder then he realised, he muses.  And obviously once he’d left the pub he’d been.... well.  Rather too distracted to think about checking his phone for messages.

Flopping down on his sofa he sighs and rubs a hand over his face, already a bit scratchy with morning stubble.  

 _Might as well get this over with_ , he decides.

Quickly scrolling through his contacts he dials Donna’s number and holds the phone up to his ear.  She picks up on the first ring.

“Oi, spaceman,” she says without preamble.  He rolls his eyes at the old nickname.

“Hi, Donna.”

“Where were you last night?” she asks.  “You were supposed to call me at eight, remember?  I still need to know what dates work for you so we can start planning Granddad’s surprise 80th.”

“I know, I know,” John says.  He rubs his face again and yawns loudly.  “I’m sorry I didn’t call last night.  Can I... um.  Call you back in a bit with dates, though?  I need to, um... look up my schedule first, and it’s at my office, so...”  His sentence is abruptly cut off by another loud, completely involuntary yawn.  

“What’s the matter with you?” Donna asks.  “Why so tired?  It’s half-seven already.  You never sleep this late.”

John groans audibly and closes his eyes.

“Had a bit of a late night last night.”

“Did you, now.”

Against his better judgment John tells his cousin the entire humiliating story.  About how he’d gone to a pub last night to meet up with Reinette, a pretty French woman from the history department who’s been flirting with him like crazy ever since he got here two weeks ago.  About how Reinette had, in the end, stood him up without so much as an explanatory text.  And about how, irritated at himself, at Reinette, and at the situation, he’d stayed a bit too long at that pub and had a little too much to drink.

And finally, about how, just as he was getting up to go home, he’d seen his mate Shareen helping a very drunk, very pretty woman John recognized immediately as living in his building out of her chair and towards the front door.

“So I helped Shareen get her home,” John says, shrugging.  “Figured it was the decent thing to do, and it would be one way to keep the night from being a complete waste.”

“Please tell me you aren’t tired right now because you shagged a drunk woman last night, John.”

John jumps to his feet at the accusation.  “No!” he says, horrified, raising his hands defensively.  “God no.  I would never do that.”

“Then why...?”

“I accidentally fell asleep in her living room after Shareen and I helped her to bed,” he says miserably.  “Woke up about --” he glances at his wristwatch -- “ten minutes ago, when she found me in her flat.  And she... well.  I’m a complete stranger to her, right? So she didn’t take my being there first thing in the morning very well.”

Donna’s resulting laughter is so loud John has to hold the phone a few inches away from his ear until she’s finished.

“She probably thinks I’m a complete wanker,” John says, groaning.

“Well you  _are_  a complete wanker.”  More laughter.

“Not helping, Donna.”

“How someone as brilliant as you can be such a bloody idiot most of the time is completely beyond me,” she tells him, still giggling.  “But look -- I gotta go get the kids ready for school.  Text me with dates that work when you figure it out, all right?”

John agrees and hangs up, hoping against hope that he never accidentally runs into Rose Tyler again.  He doesn’t think he’d be able to handle the humiliation if he did.

* * *

 

Unfortunately, John only manages to go another twelve hours without accidentally running into Rose Tyler again.

Or, rather, without Rose Tyler running into him.

He’s doing his washing in the building’s only laundry room that night, his shirtsleeves rolled up and his arms in the machine up to his elbows as he tries as hard as he can to dislodge whatever it is inside the drum of the washer that seems to be keeping the machine’s cycles from running properly.  

“Come on, you dodgy little --” he grits out, pulling as hard as he can on something slippery inside that he can’t quite see.  He tugs, and tugs, and tugs on it, but to no avail.  

A moment later the ancient machine whirs and spits and whines -- and then chugs to a complete halt, right in the middle of its spin cycle.

“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath.  He gives the machine a kick for good measure.  All his oxfords are in that bloody thing.  If he can’t get it working again he’ll have no shirt to wear to his first lecture tomorrow morning.

Suddenly, a woman’s quiet laughter startles him and snaps him out of his foul mood.  He turns around and nearly stumbles over his feet when he realises the source of the laughter is none other than his pretty, blonde upstairs neighbour.

“Um,” John says stupidly when he notices she’s watching him.  He steadies himself against the washing machine with one hand, trying to play it cool -- but knowing he’s failing miserably with his suds-covered arms and half-drenched shirt.  

“Hi,” Rose says.  “Having some... um.  Trouble?  With your washing?”

With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach John wonders just how long she’s been standing there, watching him make a fool of himself.  He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose with as much dignity as he can muster.  

“No.  No trouble at all,” he insists, gesturing meaningfully to the washing machine.  “I’m just... well.  You know.  Letting my things soak in there for a while.”  

Rose raises one eyebrow at him dubiously.  

“Yeah?” she asks.  He can see that she’s biting the inside of her cheek to keep from breaking out into a broad grin at his expense.  He cringes inwardly when he thinks of how completely idiotic this woman must think he is.

“No,” he admits.  He runs his hands through his hair dejectedly and sighs.  He kicks the machine again.  “No.  I’m not just letting them soak.  The truth is, I can’t get this bloody machine to work properly.”

“Ah,” Rose says, nodding, like she understands his troubles.  “Well, this thing’s a bit temperamental.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Rose confirms.  “’s not broken.  You just gotta know your way around it.”

Without another word, Rose walks up to the washing machine and bumps her left hip once, twice, three times against its aluminum side.  She’s wearing a tight-fitting purple top and a denim skirt that hugs her hips gorgeously and ends a few inches above the knee.  John’s mouth goes dry as he watches her swivel her hips back and forth, and digs his nails into his palms to keep from embarrassing himself even further by  _reacting_  to it.

A moment later the washing machine slowly whirs back to life, the spin cycle resuming where it left off before Rose Tyler came to the rescue.

“See?” she says, smiling again.  The tip of her tongue pokes out of the corner of her mouth flirtatiously as she does it.  John can feel a dopey grin begin to spread across his own face at the sight of it, but he’s too entranced to care.  “You just need to know how to work the machine.”

“Ah,” John says, schooling his features and nodding as if it all makes perfect sense.  “Yes.  Well.”  He clears his throat.  “Thank you very much for your help, Rose.”

Rose averts her eyes, then, and a bit of color begins to creep up her cheeks.

“I didn’t thank you this morning,” she says, sounding almost shy.

“Um,” he says for what might be the millionth time in the past twenty-four hours.  “Well... I didn’t really  _do_  anything, did I.  And I can see how you’d be... a bit surprised to see me there, sleeping on your couch, since, well, I’m a complete stranger and all that, so really you don’t... have to...”

Rose shrugs her shoulders and looks at him again, very briefly, before her eyes dart back down to the floor.  “I talked to Shareen this morning and got the whole story.  It was nice of you to help me get home.  And you could’ve... you know.  Been a creep.  But you weren’t.”  She looks him right in the eye.  “You didn’t mean to fall asleep.  And you were a perfect gentleman.”  She nods a little and holds his gaze.  “So, thank you.”

John opens his mouth to say something, and then closes it a moment later when he realizes he hasn’t the foggiest idea what to do with any of what she just said to him.   

“What do you do at the university?” she asks him abruptly.

He shakes his head a little to recover from the quick change of subject. “What?”

She smiles at him again.  “You said you moved here for the university.  What do you do there?”

“Oh,” John says, remembering.  “Yes.  Well, I’m in the physics department.  I’m a physicist.”

“A physicist,” Rose says thoughtfully.  “Huh.  You’d think a bloke with a job like that would know how to use a washing machine.”

John closes his eyes and wills himself not to blush a furious shade of crimson as Rose starts giggling again.

“I’m a theoretical physicist,” he tells her, not daring open his eyes just yet.  “I... well.  I do... theories.  And stuff.”

“Theories and stuff,” Rose repeats.  “So you’re not so good with the practical, then?”  He risks opening his eyes a crack, and is rewarded with another tongue-touched smile.

He opens his eyes all the way and shakes his head.  “I suppose I’m not so good with the practical, no,” he confirms, her cheeky grin pulling a matching one from him, as he tries to ignore the ridiculous way his stomach flips over at the sight of her smiling.


	3. Chapter 3

The next week passes by at a snail’s pace.  

Rose isn’t sure why.  

There’s certainly plenty at work to keep her occupied, between her boss being on holiday and the looming end-of-year deadlines.  Normally, a busy desk and a full inbox make the days fly by – to the point where sometimes Rose will even forget to stop for lunch.  But not this week.  No; this week, despite how swamped she is, she still finds herself glancing up at the clock on the wall every fifteen minutes, shaking her head in disbelief every time it  _still_  isn’t time to go home.

Rose refuses to let herself think this odd phenomenon has anything to do with the fact that she hasn’t seen John Smith since she saved him from himself in the laundry room last Tuesday.  It doesn’t matter how fit he is, or how adorably gobsmacked he looked when she started up that old washing machine again by bumping it with her hip.  Rose Tyler has never been the kind of person who gets distracted by a bloke she doesn’t know.  Especially when said bloke seems the type who can’t walk a straight line without bumping into a wall.  

She’s not about to start being that sort of person now.

* * *

 

When the office manager finally picks up the end-of-day reports from her inbox, Rose chances another look up at the clock.

The past four times she checked it hadn’t been anywhere close to time to leave. But the fifth time is apparently the charm.  Rose breathes a long sigh of relief when she sees it’s finally five.  

Tonight will be a perfect night for takeaway and rubbish television, she decides, as she shoulders her bag and starts walking towards the door.  It’ll help take her mind off of…

She’s saved from finishing that thought by her phone, which chooses that exact moment to buzz with a new text.  Rose digs it out of her bag and glances at the screen.

It’s Shareen.

 

_Let’s have some people over this weekend, yeah?_

 

Rose bites her lip.  She’d told her mum that she’d come by this weekend and help with a bit of shopping.  That’ll take up a good chunk of her Saturday.  But if she goes to her mum’s early enough there’s no reason she won’t be done before dinner.  

That would leave more than enough time for her and Shareen to throw a party Saturday evening.

She nods her head as she texts Shareen back:

 

_Sounds fun.  My place?_

 

Shareen’s flat is much smaller than Rose’s, and she shares it with a dodgy roommate neither of them much care for.  If they’re going to throw a party Rose’s flat is always the better option.  

Shareen texts her back a moment later to say her idea is brilliant.  

Pleased that she’ll have something to do this weekend that won’t involve staring at a clock on the wall or hanging round the laundry room (not that she’s been doing that every evening this week or anything), Rose stuffs her phone back into her bag and hurries out of the office.

* * *

 

John doesn’t see Rose again until almost a full week after the incident with the washing machine.

It’s not that he hasn’t  _thought_  about his neighbour since then.  Because he has.  He’s thought about her daily, in fact.  More than daily.  He thinks about Rose when he’s supposed to be paying attention at faculty meetings.  He thinks about her when he’s grading his student’s lab reports.

He  _definitely_  thinks about her when he puts on his dress shirts every morning as he gets ready for work.  Given how she saved them from that evil washing machine.

And he definitely, positively, most certainly thinks about the way Rose looked while saving them –that plump, luscious lower lip of hers caught between her teeth; her hips, and that little skirt, as she rocked back and forth up against the machine – way more frequently than he’d ever admit to anybody. 

But in the case of Rose Tyler, thinking about someone more than is likely prudent and actually  _seeing_  her have proven to be two very different things.  Between John’s long train commute to and from university; his lectures (which require quite a bit more preparation than he’d anticipated when he took this post); and the extensive office hours he’s expected to keep; this past week he’s had to leave his flat at six every morning and hasn’t once gotten home before ten in the evening.

So this afternoon, when he finally sees Rose again -- climbing the stairs that lead from his level of the building to hers with an older, blonde woman he doesn’t recognize, both of them struggling to carry several large bags -- John can’t stop the daft grin that instantly spreads across his face.

“Oi, Mum,” he hears Rose say.  “Don’t drop that, all right?  There’s glass bottles in it.”

“All right, all right,” the woman who must be her mother says, sounding exasperated.  “I’m doing the best I can, aren’t I?  Sure would be a lot easier to get all this up to your flat if your lift weren’t always broken.”

In a flash, John thinks of the perfect way to at least partially redeem himself for his recent streak of idiotic behaviour.

“Erm,” he says loudly.  He clears his throat.  

The two women turn their heads in his direction.  John isn’t sure whether he’s imagining it or not but he thinks Rose’s eyes go wide, just for half a second, when she sees him standing there, his hands stuffed deep in his pockets.

If it’s true, though -- if the sight of him did unsettle her at first -- she recovers her composure quickly.  For which John is immensely grateful.  That must mean she doesn’t think he’s a  _total_  arse.  

“Oh.  Hi, John,” Rose says.  Her voice has gone a little funny.  She looks down at her shoes and shifts the heavy parcels in her arms.  

“Hi, Rose,” John says back to her.   _Don’t cock this up_ , he chastises himself.   _She already thinks you’re an idiot.  “_ Can I... er.  Help you?  With those bags?”

Rose looks conflicted.  She worries her bottom lip between her teeth (how can such an innocent act be so damned sexy?).  Her honey-brown eyes dart back and forth between him and her mother, and she begins to shift her weight anxiously from foot to foot – rather as though he’d just posed an embarrassingly personal question, not asked if he could help carry her shopping.  

After a very long, awkward moment Rose finally opens her mouth to answer him.  But before any words come out of her mouth her mother answers for her.

“Yes!” she exclaims.  “Ugh, if Rose isn’t going to say yes I will.  Thank you!  These bags weigh a bloody ton.” 

Rose shoots her mother a strange look -- this time John  _knows_  he’s not imagining it -- but she says nothing.  John does his best to ignore the unsettled feeling Rose’s cryptic actions are causing in the pit of his stomach. 

“Here,” John says, approaching them, his long legs making it easy for him to take the stairs two at a time.  “Let me.”  He takes one heavy bag from each of them and gives Rose’s mother a smile.  

“Well aren’t you a gentleman,” she says, returning the smile.  She winks at him.  This time it’s John’s turn to go wide-eyed.  “Rose’s flat is just up this way.”

“He knows where I live, Mum,” Rose says under his breath.  John turns to look at her, and is both pleased and more than a little unnerved when he sees her face is slowly turning the color of a ripe tomato.

“Does he, now?” she asks.  The moment Rose resumes climbing the staircase, and her mother is out of her line of sight, the older woman turns to him and gives him another knowing wink.

John coughs awkwardly into his hand as he looks away from Rose’s mother, knowing his face is now likely just as red as her daughter’s.

* * *

 

“You can just.... um.  Set the stuff down in here, I guess,” Rose says, nodding towards her cluttered kitchen table.  She moves over to the kitchen and sets the two bags she’s carrying on top of a scattered assortment of papers.  

“Right,” John says, following her lead and depositing his two bags on the table.

“Um.  Thanks, John,” Rose says.  She can’t – or, won’t – look him in the eye.  “Um… I need to go make a phone call now.”  She jerks her thumb back in the direction of her bedroom.  “So... I guess I’ll see you later, yeah?”  She smiles at him, then, and practically bolts from the kitchen.

When Rose is out of earshot, Rose’s mother turns to John and smiles broadly at him.

“Will you be coming to her party tonight, then?” she asks.  “She’s got enough stuff in these bags to feed a hundred guests.  To say nothing of all the booze she’s bought.”  She laughs a little at her daughter’s expense. “So if you’re free tonight you should drop by.”

John doesn’t know how to respond to this.  If Rose is having a party, and if she’d wanted him to come, surely she’d have invited him?  She knows where he lives, after all.  Or at least she knows the general vicinity of where he lives.  He supposes she’s never actually been to his flat.

But her mother is not wrong about the quantity of food and liquor in the bags they just brought up that staircase.  There does seem to be enough here to provision a small army.  If his presence is unwanted – or, worse, if she’s invited some other bloke to this party to be her date – he’ll simply slip out the front door a few minutes in and none will be the wiser.  

And maybe, just maybe – if he can manage to pull his head out of his arse for thirty minutes strung together; if he can actually remember how to be a normal, walking, talking human being in Rose Tyler’s presence – this party will actually give John a chance to show her he’s not a total dunce.

“All right,” John says.  He smiles at Rose’s mother -- or tries to, anyway; he’s so nervous, suddenly, that he worries the expression on his face more closely resembles a grimace than anything else. “I’ll come.  Thanks for the invitation.”

Rose’s mother smiles back at him.

“Glad to hear it,” she says.  She shakes her head and lets out a loud, put-upon sigh.  “The daft girl wouldn’t shut up about you all day.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the delay on this! I've been distracted lately with all the wonderful prompts that timepetalsprompts on tumblr is coming up with. :) Just one more short chapter after this one, though, and it'll be up shortly. If you're still reading thanks for your patience. :)

Rose’s mum waits until the party is well underway before telling her what she said to John this afternoon.

At first Rose thinks she must have misheard her.  After all, the party is pretty loud.  People in the living room are having to shout over each other to be heard.

Besides, her mum would never intervene with a bloke on her behalf like this.

But when Jackie Tyler just looks at her, arms folded across her chest and smirking, clearly waiting for a reaction, Rose realizes, with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, that she heard her mother perfectly fine.

“You told him _what_?” she shouts when recognition dawns, loudly enough that several people in the living room turn their heads to look at her.  She doesn’t care.  “Mum, I hardly know him.  I can’t believe you invited him without telling me.”

“Well you obviously fancy him.”

“I do not!”

“Right, you don’t fancy him.  _That’s_ why you mentioned him no fewer than four times just on the way back from Henriks alone,” Jackie points out.  “And why your face turned red as a tomato when he offered to help us up the stairs with our shopping.” 

Rose bites her lip. “My face did not turn red,” she says petulantly.

“You couldn’t take your eyes off each other, either.”

Now her face _is_ turning red.  “Mum, he was only being nice.”

“Right.  Only being nice,” Jackie Tyler says dismissively.  “I’ve seen nice before, Rose Tyler.  It doesn’t usually involve quite so much staring and stammering and blushing.” 

Rose doesn’t know what to say in response to any of this. She fiddles with her hoop earring just for something to do with her hands.

“I don’t know what you’re so upset about, anyway,” her mum continues.  “It’s just a party.  If he does something daft, kick him out.  There’s plenty of people here to help you show him the door.  And in any case he seems a fair sight better than that last bloke you went with.”

At her mother’s vague reference to Jimmy Rose feels her face grow even redder.

“Right, it’s late.  I’m going home.”  Jackie shoulders her bag and makes her way to the front door of Rose’s flat.  “Have fun tonight, dear.  Tell John I said hello when he gets here.”

Her mum gives her a hug and a peck on each cheek before turning to leave.

When the door closes behind her Rose begins chewing on her thumbnail.  An old nervous habit.

She wonders if John not showing up is too much to hope for.

It’s not that she doesn’t want to see her neighbour again.  Eventually.  But her mum told him she’d talked about him all day.  What kind of idiot talks to her mum all day about a bloke she barely knows?  John likely thinks she’s a complete moron now.  And with him being a physics professor and everything he’s likely used to women who are much smarter than her as it is. 

She closes her eyes and groans in frustration.  Why should any of this matter anyway?  It doesn’t.  It doesn’t matter.  He’s just her neighbour.  If he comes to the party, he comes.  It’s fine.  Everything will be fine.

But she can’t make herself believe it.

Rose is tempted to grab a beer from the living room and drink away her nervousness.  She thinks better of it, though, remembering how getting drunk in order to stop thinking about a man got her into this mess in the first place.

Resigned to spending a potentially very awkward evening completely sober, Rose weaves her way through her friends until she finds Shareen chatting with a girl they knew back in school.

“Hey, Rose!” Shareen says happily when she sees her.

Rose smiles back at her and tries to join their conversation.  But she can’t quite manage it.  Every time she closes her eyes she sees John’s endearing, shy smile, and the adorable way it makes his bright brown eyes crinkle around the edges.

In the end it’s all she can do to just stand there and nod along while her friends happily talk to each other about football.

* * *

 

And of course, John does come.

When he arrives it’s like a scene out of one of those cheesy movies Rose used to watch with her mum on bank holidays.  Those predictable films where a guy meets a pretty girl in the first few minutes through a funny set of circumstances.  Then after that there’s always a lot of singing and dancing and miscommunication and hurt feelings.  But none of that ever matters, really, because all the way through it you know they’ll wind up together in the end anyway.

The room gets strangely quiet all of a sudden when he enters her living room, even though nobody seems to have stopped talking.  And suddenly she just _knows_ he’s there, can sense his presence behind her before he’s even said a single word.

He taps her gently on the shoulder.  She whirls around to face him. 

And her jaw drops.

If Rose’s mum could see her now she would have a field day.  Because in this moment there is absolutely no denying that she is unabashedly staring at this man.

If John Smith was good-looking the handful of times she’s seen him before (and he was; he definitely was), tonight he’s shown up looking drop dead gorgeous.  He’s traded in the t-shirt and jeans he seems to normally wear for a brown, pinstriped suit that’s loose where it’s supposed to be and tight everywhere else, and that shows off his cute bum perfectly.  His hair looks like he just stepped out of a salon – perfectly coiffed, his locks so thick and gorgeous Rose has to dig her fingernails into her palms to keep herself from running her hands through it, right here in front of all these people.

Rose blinks at him once, twice, and then a third time in rapid succession in an attempt to clear her head and settle the butterflies that have taken up sudden residence in her stomach.  It doesn’t work.

“Hi,” he eventually says, the right side of his mouth quirking up into a half-smile.  If he’s put off by the fact that she’s standing there gaping at him he doesn’t show it.   “Is it ok that I’m here?  Your mum kind of… well.  She kind of invited me.  But the invitation didn’t come from you personally, so I just thought I’d… you know.  Make sure it was all right that I came.” 

When Rose doesn’t say anything in response to his babbling he starts to look a little nervous.  He swallows audibly, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down distractingly as he does it. 

“If you don’t want me here, that’s fine.  It’s fine.  I can just go back home.  If you want.”

 “Um,” Rose says stupidly.  She shakes her head a little, tries to unstick her tongue from the roof of her mouth.  “My mum invited you, did she?”  Trying to act like she didn’t already know.  Trying to keep her voice from shaking too badly.  She’s gazing right into his honey-brown eyes, now, which look just as anxious as she feels behind his black-framed glasses.

“Yep,” he says, popping the p.  She stares at his mouth as he does it.  At the way his pouty lower lip juts out ever so slightly.  “She did.  So is it ok if I… you know.  Stay?  For a bit?”

Rose shrugs her shoulders.  Tries to act casual.  “Um.  Yes.  Yeah.  Sure.”

His smile grows.

“Brilliant.”  He grabs a beer from the top of the coffee table.  He twists the top off the bottle and puts the cap in his pocket.  And then his eyes are back on her as he lifts the bottle to his lips.

But then he puts it right back down on the table.  He’s still looking at her, now with a strange expression on his face.  Like he has something he wants to say but doesn’t know how to say it.

“Um.  Rose,” he says eventually.  He walks around the coffee table and is next to her again in three strides. His eyes are soft and warm.  Inviting.  “Can we… erm.  Go out into the hallway for a minute?  And talk?”

Rose feels her eyes go wide with surprise. But she recovers her composure quickly.  She coughs into her hand a little before answering, certain he must be able to hear her heart racing even above the din of the party.  “Um.  Sure!  Yes, yes, of course, John.  Whatever you want.” 

He puts his hand on her arm and gives it a gentle squeeze.  She can feel the warmth of his hand through her thick jumper and cotton blouse, and all the way down to her skin.  She looks down to where he’s touching her, and then she looks up at him again.

He gives her a small, timid smile.  It makes her knees go a little weak, his smile.

“We can come back to the party after,” he says.  “Promise.”

 


	5. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GAAAAAH, I didn't intend it to take me 11,000 years to finish this little story! But the right ending just wouldn't come. A few days ago, though, it did. ;)
> 
> If you're still reading it (or just finding it now), thank you for giving it a chance. ;)

***one month later***

* * *

 

When they finally make it back from Donna’s party Rose sees, to her dismay, that theie lift has a large _Out of Order_ sign taped to the front of it. 

 “Oh, wonderful,” she mutters, struggling a bit under her heavy burden.  This has to be the fifth time in as many months that that bloody thing has broken down. 

She wishes, and not for the first time, that she’d taken Donna up on her earlier offer to help haul her very daft, very drunk boyfriend home.  But if John is upset over the lift being broken he doesn't show it.  He only laughs, loudly, when he sees the sign, and places a sloppy wet kiss on Rose’s cheek.

“Thank you for helping me home, Rose,” he says.  His head lolls against her shoulder and his breath – still absolutely reeking of his granddad’s favourite beer – is hot on the sensitive skin of her neck.  They left the party nearly an hour ago, but John’s words still slur together so badly she wouldn’t be able to understand him at all if she hadn’t spent so much time with him these past few weeks. 

Fortunately, the shy, grateful grin he’s wearing right now does a lot to mollify her.

John may be a skinny bloke, but he’s also a surprisingly heavy one.   At the moment, he’s also not entirely capable of standing up without listing to one side.  Smiling at her or not, it takes Rose a full ten minutes to get him up the single flight of stairs that leads to his flat on the second floor.

Once she unlocks his front door and has it open she wastes no time, shoving John inside and depositing him heavily on his living room couch.

“I had no idea getting pissed at your granddad’s 80th birthday party was even a thing people _did_ ,” she says, hands on hips.  He’s still grinning, peering up at her through half-lidded eyes from where he leans back against the sofa cushions.

He looks so pathetic and adorable, all eager eyes and puppy dog limbs that try as she might Rose just can’t stay irritated with him.

“Granddad loves you,” he says in a quiet voice after a short pause.  “Totally smitten.  Thank you for coming with me tonight.”

Now it’s her turn to smile.  “Wouldn’t have missed it.”

It’s the truth. 

Ever since the early awkwardness between them was cleared up definitively once and for all – in the hallway, right outside her flat; the night of that party her mum invited him to – they’ve spent nearly every waking moment together, going on long walks all over the city and sharing takeaway at her too-small kitchen table. He fancied her, and she fancied him, and after that first snog they shared in the hallway they realized that was all that mattered.

And so when a week ago, he asked her to be his date to the party Donna was throwing for their granddad’s 80th she told him she’d be delighted.  Her heart was in her throat and her heart was racing.  His invitation felt like the next step in intimacy, somehow.  Something big, and real.  Something important.

Even now, with John three sheets to the wind and granddad Wilf's party long since over, Rose's heartbeat picks up all over again just thinking of how nervous he’d been when he invited her.

“I guess this is payback!” he blurts out, interrupting her sweet reverie.  He points one long index finger up at the ceiling before bursting out into hysterical laughter.

Rose has no idea what he’s talking about.  “I’m sorry, what?”  She raises a curious eyebrow at him, hoping he’ll clarify.

It takes a moment for his giggles to subside.   When they do, he suddenly becomes very serious.

“Payback, Rose.  For how we met,” he says, moving his hands meaningfully.  He points to his face, to Rose's face.  To his sofa.  “We’ve come full circle from that morning in your flat, don’t you think?”

Ah.

Rose’s mind flashes back to that first horribly awkward morning, when she’d woken up from a terrible hangover to find a complete stranger sleeping on her living room sofa.  She’d been horrified to find him there of course, but not nearly as horrified as John had been when she found him there. 

He’d been such an adorable, flustered mess trying to explain himself, tripping over his words in his haste to apologize to her.  It wasn’t until later that she realized she’d started falling for him even then.

“And now here we are, Rose Tyler, in _my_ flat, right before I’m about to fall asleep on _my_ couch.”  He folds his arms across his chest and sniffs, looking at his surroundings as though seeing his sofa and his flat for the very first time, and looking very pleased with his powers of deduction.

He’s wrong, though, Rose realizes suddenly.  Because they haven’t come full circle.  Not really.  Her smile grows as she sits down next to him on the sofa. 

Slowly, slowly, she leans over and places a gentle kiss to the cheek that’s closest to her.  She enjoys the warm rough rasp of his stubble against her lips, and smiles to herself when his eyelids flutter closed.

“I think,” she says, her breath on his cheek now, her hands coming to rest on his upper thigh.  “I think that you’ll be sleeping in your own bed tonight, actually.” 

A small tremor goes through him.   Rose has to bite her lip to keep from giggling at how adorably surprised he is.  Because what she’s about to propose is a big step too, and it’s not the time for laughter.

“Oh?”  he says.  He's trying to keep his voice level, she can tell.  But it doesn't really work. 

“Mmm,” she confirms.  She kisses his cheek again, and then a third time.  A fourth time, her lips lingering a long moment against his cheek.  She nuzzles his shoulder.  “We’ll be sleeping in your bed together tonight, don’t you think?”

She takes his hand in hers.  Gives it a squeeze.  His is shaking a little but hers is too.

He swallows.  “Both of us?  In my bed?”

“Yeah.” She pulls back a little, suddenly unsure. "Unless, you know... you don't want to."

He touches her chin until she's looking at him again. Smiling, his eyes shining, he leans forward and silences all her doubts with a sure, steady kiss.

* * *

 

In the morning, over pancakes she makes them, they swap hangover remedies as their legs twine together under his kitchen table.

"It's a good weekend for staying in, don't you think?" he asks her.  His head has got to be killing him after what he drank last night, Rose knows.  But he's beaming.

The spend the rest of the morning snuggled up together on his couch, the remote resting between them as they watch rubbish cooking shows and terrible rom coms. He dozes off after a while, and Rose thinks to herself that her life, all told, is going quite well indeed.


End file.
